Last year, in an attempt to bolster the value of its online service, Nintendo released the battle royale block-matching puzzle game, Tetris 99. It started out as an exclusive title available to Switch Online subscribers and ended up receiving a physical release later down the line.

It was considered to be a revolutionary take on the classic series and had many people playing it for months on end. In a recent interview with US Gamer, the creator of Tetris Alexey Pajitnov spoke about his own love for this Switch Online release and said it was a positive step towards Tetris establishing itself as an e-sport one day:

Tetris 99 is absolutely a great title. Basically, I think the one-player version of Tetris has been more or less stabilized over the years. That's good, and we're just adjusting the game to new user interfaces. But for two-player modes and serious competition, there are several challenges to overcome.

He also mentioned how he loved the Switch in general and revealed The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was one of his favourite games on the system. Puyo Puyo Tetris is another title he's rather fond of, stating how it is "the only game" that could possibly be paired with Tetris.

Pajitnov even reflected on how he created the puzzle mode in the original Puyo Puyo game:

I designed the puzzle mode—the small tasks, like when you need to clear the field in a couple of moves or something like that. But it was so long ago

In our own interview with Alex Pajitnov, dating back to last June, he also stated how much he loved Tetris 99 and thought it was "one of the best games" of 2019.

When he’s not paying off a loan to Tom Nook, Liam likes to report on the latest Nintendo news and admire his library of video games. His favourite Nintendo character used to be a guitar-playing dog, but nowadays he prefers to hang out with Judd the cat.

I think it's cool to hear his thoughts about Tetris 99, even though it isn't really one of my favorites in the franchise (as well as me not having played it much outside of Special Themes). It also pleases me to hear that he's fond of Puyo Puyo Tetris (which I vastly prefer over Tetris 99 for content alone).

Whatever the case, I agree with him: I do hope Tetris gets okay'd by the eSport world to becoming one of the greats.

...also, he made the Puzzle mode in Puyo Puyo? This be the first I'm hearing of this!

What are his thoughts on Tetris Effect? I know it's currently a PS4 exclusive, but if that game ever came to Switch, I would be very excited to try it. Tetris 99 unfortunately never grabbed me, but that's probably in no small part because I couldn't play with an analog.

@Swaz I don't really do PC gaming, but thanks for the information, I wasn't aware of that. I didn't realize the game was $40 either, yeesh! Do you know if there's a substantial amount of content? I don't see my self paying that for a puzzle game, even if it comes to Switch. I would have to wait for a Black Friday sale or something.

@Not_Soos It has more content than any other Tetris game. Personally, I found the graphics too distracting and I didn’t care for the other game modes, I just like regular old Tetris. Sometimes less is more.

@Not_Soos The Joy-con in the Grip is my controller of choice for Tetris 99,despite having other options. The D-pad buttons are perfect for Tetris, more so than a normal D-pad I think. I would struggle playing it with the analogue stick though.

@Woomy_NNYes I don't know how it is nowadays but at least in the 80s and early 90s he didn't get any royalties, because he was in the Soviet Union so the right to tetris belonged to the state and not him.

@countzero that rings a bell. Crap. You're right to point that out. (I'm going to add context to my comment, because it could look a bit ignorant & jackass.)

The article seemed so upbeat & positive, I glossed past that. Since Nintendo is very keen on ip ownership these days, and nurturing game developers, my feeling was that he would be getting a cut now for Teris 99 - man, I hope he is!? Seems crazy if there still some strange restriction or legal issue, because as the inventor of Tetris, he deserves it. Yeah, the upbeat tone of the article led me to think he's getting a respectful piece of the pie, these days. Like I said, you're absolutely right to point that out. Thanks!